The Daily - The Biden Problem Democrats Can No Longer Ignore

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

Questions about President Biden’s age sharpened again recently after a special counsel report about his handling of classified information described him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The Times, explains why Mr. Biden’s condition can no longer be ignored.Guest: Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: How Old Is Too Old to Be President? An Uncomfortable Question Arises Again.‘My Memory Is Fine,’ a Defiant Biden Declares After Special Counsel ReportFor more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. For months, Democrats have downplayed questions about President Biden's age and his memory. That just got much harder to do. My colleague, Peter Peter Baker explains. It's Wednesday, February 14th. Peter, when the special counsel report was released a few days ago and ignited into a national conversation about President Biden's age and memory, all of us here at The Daily thought of you because you've covered Biden for decades now. You've seen him up close as a senator, as vice president, now president.

You've watched him age. And in your role as chief White House correspondent, you've been examining what it means for Biden to be the oldest president in American history. So I just want to start there with your own observations. Well, yeah, the reality is that Joe Biden has aged, and it's hard not to notice. And I think over the past few years, that aging has been a pronounced process. There's a real change occurring. Not surprising. It's normal for somebody of his age. In many ways, obviously, he's as healthy and vigorous as any 81-year-old you can see. He rides bikes, he exercises, but it's hard not to notice when you watch him up close.

Well, just explain what you mean when you talk about this aging. Like you said, everyone ages, but let's talk about the specifics of Biden aging here. Well, there's the public presentation, right? What you see when he shows up in the East Room, for instance, or the podium, you see it in his gait, first thing out, right? He's walking to the podium, and he kind of shuffles now into rooms.

And he has taken a few falls recently. You know, he once fell on his bike, and that was recorded by cameras, which was embarrassing to him. So that's the visual element. That's what we see. And then, you know, there's also the verbal element. They had to work hard to show patience and be willing to travel over a thousand miles. You could say even this harder than getting a ticket to the Renaissance tour or Britney's tour. She's down in, it's kind of warm in Brazil right now. You can hear him in his extemporaneous speaking sometimes trail off mid-sentence. 40% of all products coming into the United States of America on the West Coast go through Los Angeles and, what am I doing here?

Long Beach. Long Beach, thank you. Or, you know, struggling to find his way back. There is some movement, and I don't want to, I don't want to, well, maybe choose my words. There's some movement. There's been a response from the, there's better response. Again, that's not unusual for somebody of his age, but it comes across more pronounced

when you're president of the United States and the cameras are on you so intensely. Right. And I think what really stands out for a lot of people, particularly lately, has been his memory. You know, he will confuse people, for instance, mentioning Helmut Kohl when he means Angela Merkel, different chancellors of Germany. Helmut Kohl, of course, been dead for a number of years. Same with France. He confused Francois Mitterrand, the late president

of France, with Emmanuel Macron, the current president of France. In my reporting, even talking with people about private moments with the president, what's striking is like administration officials, for instance, who haven't seen him in a while or former aides who are catching up with him after a number of months, what they'll say is how surprised they are at how much he is aged.

They too notice it when they haven't seen him for a while and it's been striking to them. So it's not just even what the reporters are seeing, but the people who are around him. Peter, I'm curious, in your reporting, how you're separating what might be kind of superficial about what, for example, these former aides are telling you or what we all see, you know, the president forgetting a foreign leader's name, mistaking it, how you separate potentially a common variety of someone getting old and having a lapse from what's truly worrisome about this as a journalist. Yeah, I mean, that's a fair question. And what we've tried to do is do a lot of reporting to distinguish between the two, right? Between the superficial, does it really matter if he gets the name wrong here or there?

And is his judgment affected? Is his ability to process information and make important decisions affected? And that's what really, of course, matters most in a president and a commander-in-chief, especially at a time when we have so many crises. And so a few months ago, right, a team of us at the time spent weeks talking to dozens of people around Biden. And what we found is basically there are sort of these two Bidens coexisting side by side. There's the one who does forget names and places

and may trail off in the middle of a thought. But then there's the Biden that behaves the way you would expect a president to act, you know, to really grill his aides on what's going on and make sure he has all the information. In fact, to really grill his aides on what's going on and make sure he has all the information. In fact, to correct them when he thinks that they're wrong, to make crisp decisions when they are necessary, to make wise decisions in the face of these enormous challenges and crises that a president can face. And so there's one story, for instance,

about the president being on a trip to Asia a number of months back and being woken in the middle of the night to find out that a missile had struck Poland, which, of course, is a NATO ally of America. And this is a real crisis because the fear was that Russia, in its war with Ukraine, had hit a NATO ally, which would have been a massive escalation. Right. I remember it. Right. And in the middle of the night, he's woken up to deal with this crisis. And as his aides describe it, and of course, this is his aides, we're not there, but as they describe it, he does what you want a president to do.

He gets in touch with the president of Poland and the NATO secretary general, and he really leads the world through this crisis. And as they discover, fortunately, it turned out not to be a Russian missile, and it was not an intentional escalation, and the crisis was diffused. But that's the two Bidens you're seeing, the one that you don't see as much on TV or in public, who is doing the job that the voters want him to do.

Right. The conclusion you and our colleagues seem to have drawn, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that even if Biden's memory and his verbal agility is in any kind of decline, in the moments that matter, the president functions highly. And in those moments of functioning highly, most of them are off camera. Yeah, that's right. Look, in interviewing all these people who have been around him, aides, administration officials, allies, congressional officials, even foreign diplomats, nobody has said to me they don't

think he can do the job nobody said that they think that the issues that trouble a lot of americans about his appearance or the you know his clear aging have affected his capacity to make the decisions that you would want a president to make now what a lot of people do can have concern about including some people around him is you, you know, where this could lead. If he's able to make these decisions in the way he does now, that's one thing. What will it be like a year from now? Or if he wins another election five years from now, he would be 86 at the end of a second term. And that's the question I think a lot of voters are going to ask. Right. So even those around him who are quick to tell you there's no problem with President Biden's ability to function in this job, period, say. But if you're asking us what will it look like in four years and a second term, there's some pause there.

a lot of people in the administration who will, in a, you know, candid moment, maybe over a glass of wine at night or when they're certainly not on the record, then you would hear from some administration officials anyway, this concern about what things may be like in a year or especially five years. And they understand just like a lot of Americans do that, that a lot can happen between now and then. But at the same time, of course, it's a binary choice. The other candidate here is not exactly a younger generation. That's Donald Trump. He's 77. And he has his own public memory lapses and confusion over issues and names. Have weaponized law enforcement to arrest their leading political opponent, leading by a lot, including Obama. I'll tell you what, you take a look at Obama and take a look at some of the things that he's done. This is the same thing. The country

is very divided. And we did with Obama, we won an election that everyone said couldn't be won. And all kinds of other, you know, things he says that seem to indicate cognitive issues with age. We have a man who is totally corrupt and the worst president in the history of our country who is cognitively impaired, in no condition to lead, and is now in charge of dealing with Russia and possible nuclear war.

Just think of it. We would be in World War II. The difference is, of course, that Trump speaks with such bombastic energy that it sort of conveys something different. And the polls show that while a lot of Americans are also concerned about Trump's age, and he also would be the oldest president in history

if he wins and finishes a four-year term, not as many voters are quite as concerned as they are with Biden. That the age issue has definitely been more damaging politically for Biden so far than it has been for Trump. Right, so fairly or unfairly, and I'm sure to those in Biden world, it's unfair,

the reality is that the age issue cuts both ways, but it seems to bruise Biden more. So I think it's fair to say that is the complicated backdrop against which the special counsel report is released. Exactly. So Robert Herr was the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to look into why President Biden had kept classified documents from his time as vice president, even going back to his time as Senate. And these documents were found in his office and home in Wilmington, Delaware. That's not where they're supposed to be.

Right. And, of course, President Trump, since he had already been investigated for something similar, they had to make sure to look at this in a serious way as well. So Robert Herr was a Republican U.S. attorney appointed by Trump and then picked by Merrick Garland to handle this very delicate case because that way, you know, nobody could say that if he found no issue that he was a partisan Democrat. In fact, he has a pretty nonpartisan reputation. And he'd spent a long time, like about a year, looking into this. And he decides that there is not a crime here

to charge President Biden with, which is obviously a big relief to the president. But this legal exoneration is unfortunately for Biden, a political nightmare. The bombshell in the report is why Robert Hearst says he can't charge the president. And one of the reasons he says is the president's memory is so bad

that he couldn't establish Biden's intent to willfully retain the documents or why these documents were stored the way that they were. Which is an extraordinary claim. I mean, to some, it was inflammatory. How does the special counsel, how does her justify coming to that conclusion? the reason or a big reason he can't charge Biden is because the president's memory is so faulty? Right, exactly.

So, Herr sits down with President Biden for five hours of interviews over two days. days. And in his report, Herr takes through these key moments when the president can't seem to remember important moments, or at least remember the specifics of when they happened. For instance, he said he couldn't remember reading out loud his notes to the ghostwriter of one of his books, although obviously he did do that. And in reading those out, read out classified information. He couldn't remember exactly when he was vice president. At one point he says, if it was 2013, when did I stop being vice president? He was trying to recall in 2009, am I still a vice president?

So he couldn't place the dates correctly, at least not initially. And according to Robert Herr, even most explosively, President Biden couldn't remember the year that his son Beau died, even within several years. And I think that in particular was a powerful thing for Robert Hurd to report. So in the end, Hurd writes in his report, quote, a jury would not convict him because he seems like a well-meaning elderly man with memory problems. because he seemed like a well-meaning elderly man with memory problems.

Right. I think a lot of people who saw that language, Peter, thought, does this special counsel have it in for Joe Biden? I mean, you described him as nonpartisan, but this is a very official legal document, and the conclusions and the language that he arrives at are pointed and seemingly embarrassing and, in the context of a campaign, pretty damaging. And so the thinking becomes, is there a backstory here we need to understand? Right. Yeah, that's a fair question. And after all, the special counsel was tasked with looking into mishandling classified documents, not the president's mental acuity. But, you know, for Robert Herr, he felt the need to justify his decision not to bring criminal charges.

And so the examples needed, I suppose, in his mind to be as revealing and telling as they were in order to explain the conclusion that he made. Right, because whatever this issue was before this report was released, Biden, his age, his memory, all those questions, it was suddenly on steroids. It was suddenly something really hard to not look at and talk about and think about. Absolutely. This is not a poll. This is not a reporter writing a story. It's not a columnist or a commentator making gratuitous comments. It's

not Republicans, you know, chopping up his videos and putting them out in a damaging way. This is an official report and is saying that a conclusion about whether or not to charge the president of the United States has been based on his ability to remember things or not remember things as the case may be. And the line then becomes, well, if he's not fit to be a defendant in a trial, is he fit to be president of the United States? And you can imagine how this goes over in the White House, right? This is infuriating to them. Biden land is absolutely livid. The president is absolutely livid. And so he decides to fight back. We'll be right back. So, Peter, how does President Biden end up fighting back against this special counsel report that turns out to be so embarrassing for him?

Well, on Thursday night, just a few hours after the report comes out, and without any real notice to the White House press corps, the president's staff announces that he's going to make a statement. As you know, the special counsel released this finding today about their look into my handling of classified documents. At first, he looks like he's taking a victory lap. I was pleased to see he reached a firm conclusion that no charges should be brought against me in this case. He's talking about how he has been exonerated, and that is, in fact, still the bottom line of this report. The special counsel acknowledged I cooperated completely.

He talks about how this, you know, exhaustive investigation included very long interviews and moments of intense pressure. I went forward with a five-hour in-person, five-hour in-person interview over two days on October the 8th and 9th of last year, even though Israel had just been attacked by Hamas on the 7th and I was very occupied. And he cited the special counsel's own statements, praising him for his cooperation, which, of course, is in great contrast to former

President Trump, who's charged with trying to literally obstruct government officials who are seeking classified documents back. In addition, I know there's some attention paid to some language in the report about my recollection of events. But then the president goes on the attack. There's even reference that I don't remember when my son died. How in the hell dare he raise that? And specifically, Biden mentions the part of the report that says he couldn't remember when his son died. At this point, you see the anger, especially in his face, and he's kind of gritting his teeth almost as he's responding. Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn't any of their damn business. Right, he's angry,

but he's not denying any of Herr's claims about memory lapses. No, he's not denying any of the very specific things that Herr is saying. He's most upset that it suggests that he doesn't remember his son's death, and of course he remembers his son's death. That was one of the most scary moments of his life. Robert Herr wasn't saying he didn't remember that. Robert Herr was saying

he didn't remember the date. Right. But for President Biden, it was a step too far. It was an inflammatory thing to say. Their task was to make a decision about whether to move forward with charges in this case.

That's their decision to make. That's the council's decision to make. That's his job. And they their decision to make. That's the council's decision to make. That's his job. And they decided not to move forward for any extraneous commentary. They don't know what they're talking about. It has no place in this report. The bottom line is the matter is now closed. I'm going to continue what I've always focused on, my job of being president of the United States of America. Thank you, and I'll take some questions. And then there's a feisty question and answer session

with the White House press corps on all these issues. Right. President Biden, something the special counsel said in his report is that one of the reasons you were not charged is because, in his description, you are a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory. I'm well-meaning, and I'm an elderly man, and I know what the hell I'm doing. I've been president.

Most dramatically, he has his back and forth with a Fox News reporter, Peter Doocy, who asks him, can you continue? Put this country back on its feet. I don't need his recommendation. How bad is your memory, And can you continue as president? My memory is so bad, I let you speak. Biden pushes it back on him, saying, my memory is so bad, I let you speak. And I think that was an effective moment of political performance until it's not.

Yeah. He's so close. Thank you all very, very much. He's walking out the door. He has said what he wants to say, but he hears a question about Gaza. And he decides to turn around and come back to the podium and back to the microphone to answer the question. And he gives some actually important news there. He says... The conduct of the response in the Gaza Strip

has been over the top. That Israel's response in has been over the top. Israel's response in Gaza was over the top. That was much sharper than he has said before. But then he makes a mistake. The president of Mexico, Sisi, did not want to open up the gate to allow humanitarian material to get in. I talked to him. He says the president of Mexico when he means the president

of Egypt. And it's not that big a deal, obviously, but in this moment, in this particular moment when people are focused on his memory and his ability to speak correctly, in the end, it distracts from the message he had just delivered about how sharp he was. Right. Once this news conference is over, it did feel pretty clear that something had changed, right? And that when it comes to this question of his memory, his acuity, this was something of a turning point. And the question becomes, how much of a turning point?

Does it matter? Will it go away? And I'm curious, does this moment change anything about how the Democratic Party treats Biden at this very important moment when he's the presumed nominee coasting towards becoming the party's candidate for re-election? And does it change how Biden conducts himself as president and as candidate? Yeah, let's start with the party. I mean, there are Democrats like David Axelrod, who of course was Obama's top advisor and who knows Biden well from the time he was vice president, who are saying that age is a real issue and that they need to take it seriously.

They have questioned whether it was a great idea to nominate a candidate of this age in a race that's so important from the Democratic point of view to win. But is this a turning point in the conversation? I mean, the thing is, I think prior to this report, the White House had done a pretty good job of trying to tamp down concern in the Democratic Party

to the point where they had convinced a lot of people of trying to tamp down concern in the Democratic Party to the point where they had convinced a lot of people who may have their doubts about him to recognize he was going to be their candidate anyway. So it was time to try to move on past that issue and not focus on it. And then you have this report come out that puts it front and center again and causes a lot more hand-wringing inside the party about what they're going to do with a candidate who's 81 years old. Yes, but at a stage in the Democratic nomination process where it does feel more or less impossible to do anything about it. Yeah, I mean, the reality is nobody can talk Joe Biden out of running at this point,

except maybe his wife, and she's all on board. So he has feels he is uniquely suited to beat Donald Trump because he's the one guy who did beat Donald Trump in 2020, right? And in fact, other Democrats deferred to him, whether they thought it was a good idea or not, really nobody challenged him. I mean, Dean Phillips, a congressman from Minnesota, got in the race and he got clobbered in the New Hampshire primary where Biden wasn't even on the ballot and people wrote him in. So there is no plausible scenario at this point for any candidate other than President Biden, unless something happens between now and the election that forces a change. Right. Nor, and it seems important to mention this, is there anything approaching a meaningful public call to even have that conversation at this point. Exactly. They

recognize that that conversation is too late to have at this point. And so a lot you hear from some Democrats, even the ones who are uncomfortable with that, you know, a call to say enough of the discussion about this. We need to figure out how to how to beat the other guy, not so much beating up on our own guy. Right. And so, in effect, the baseline strategy is to say, okay, sure, Biden is old, but Trump is crazy. That's the argument they're going to make. And wouldn't you rather have a well-meaning but elderly guy, to paraphrase Robert Hurd's report,

versus a person who, in their view and in the view of a lot of Americans, is reckless and dangerous? Mm-hmm. And then Trump himself decides to say something that will play right into the Democratic strategy. Hmm. Just explain that.

Well, thank you very much. South Carolina, we've had a great relationship with South Carolina. Thank you very much. So he's in South Carolina at a rally on Saturday, just two days after the Hur report comes out. And he's talking about NATO and how NATO members should be spending more on their military,

and he's been pushing them to do it. And he recounts this story where he says, anyway, a NATO ally once asked him, Well, sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us? I said, you didn't pay? You're delinquent? If we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us? And he says, no. No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.

You got to pay. You got to pay your bills. Not only would I not protect you, he says, he would encourage the Russians to do whatever the hell they want. In other words, he would encourage an enemy to attack America's own treaty allies. Most politicians have said to that, yes, we will protect you under any circumstances. Well, then they're never paying up. Right.

And suddenly, the question of Biden's age is no longer the central story of the moment, and it's put in a very different perspective. It absolutely is, right, exactly. It's not just that he changes the subject, which is important and helpful to the Biden camp. It's that he helps the Biden people reframe the age question to say, which is more important to you, somebody who, you know, forgets a name or can't summon a date or somebody who would completely undermine the entire international

order as we have known it for generations. And from their viewpoint, this have made the choice in this election perhaps more complicated than it ever really needed to be. If you think that Trump is a unique threat, and so many Democrats argue that, so many Democratic leaders argue that, then you have the hard but necessary debate about whether the 81-year-old president, Joe Biden, should be the nominee, whether it makes sense, whether it creates the

strongest possible chances for victory. And Democrats didn't do that. They didn't. They just pretty much went through the motions to re-nominate Biden. So how do you think about that? Yeah, I mean, I think that's a very interesting question, an important question. The party didn't really have that conversation in an open way. They deferred to the incumbent president because he wanted to run again. in an open way. They deferred to the incumbent president because he wanted to run again. And because they thought, at least at one point, that his argument that he was the one person who could beat Trump would be the safest pair of hands in a way. But the polls show he's not. The polls show that he's running even or even behind former President Trump. And he, in fact, is not a guarantee to win in 2024. Right. In other words, the party made a risky bet

when their argument is that the risk on the other side is intolerable. And to that point, Peter, how does the president, those around him, the party, plan for a 10-month-long campaign now where eyes are trained on the question of Biden, his age, his acuity, and what do we understand to be their strategy for making the most of a pretty tricky situation? Yeah, there's actually a lot of debate and tension about this within Biden world.

There are those who want to protect him, make sure that he doesn't have too many opportunities to make mistakes that would embarrass him. And there are those around him. There are people in the White House and the administration I hear say, let him lose, put him out there and he will do fine. Most broadly, though, I think the broad strategy is they're just going to have to gut it out. There's no chance of changing candidates at this point. So just live with it. Make the contrast with former President Trump. Make the argument that you've got two old men, both of whom have their issues about age, but that one of them is a responsible actor and the other is not. And the question is, will they be able to make that case to the American public, and will the American public buy it?

Well, Peter, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. Great talking to you. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Today, after not just a long night and weekend, but after months of work, we can say it's been worth it. On Tuesday, after months of tense bipartisan negotiations, the U.S. Senate passed a long-awaited foreign aid package for Ukraine and Israel that now appears doomed in the U.S. House. The $95 billion aid package was originally linked to tougher security measures at the U.S.-Mexico border, as congressional Republicans had demanded. But once former President Trump denounced that bill, the Senate proceeded with legislation that funded Israel and Ukraine without border security.

Despite overwhelming support for the legislation in the Senate, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said he would refuse to bring the bill up for a vote in his chamber because it lacks border security, despite opposing the version of the bill that contained border security. And I call on Speaker Johnson to rise to the occasion, to do the right thing. bring this bill to the floor. In a speech on Tuesday, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pleaded with Johnson to change his mind. It is clear that if that bill is brought to the floor, our bill is brought to the floor, it will pass. And...

On this vote, the yeas are 214 and the nays are 213. The resolution is adopted. House Republicans have impeached the Secretary of Homeland Security after trying and failing to do so last week. Republicans have shown no evidence that the secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, has committed any constitutional crimes, but instead based their impeachment on objections to his policies, which they say have failed to secure the border. There is no chance that Mayorkas will be convicted in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats. Finally, in the closely watched special election to fill the seat of Republican Representative George Santos of New York,

who was expelled over his lies and financial schemes, the Democratic candidate, Tom Swasey, has defeated his Republican opponent. Because Democrats have flipped the seat, Republicans can now lose only two votes on any partisan bill. Today's episode was produced by Carlos Prieto and Michael Simon-Johnson. It was edited by Rachel Quester with help from Paige Cowett, contains original music by Chelsea Daniel, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderling. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.